Gareth D. Williams - Babylon 5 A Dark, Distorted Mirror Vol.1 p3

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Volume 1: The Other Half of my Soul

Part III: Warrior Souls

"WHO are you?" "I am Delenn." "That's not what I asked. Who are you?" "That is the only answer I can give you. I was a Satai of the Grey Council. I was a member of the clan of Mir, of the religious caste. I was many things. Now, I am just Delenn." Captain John J. Sheridan looked directly at her and bowed his head, thumping the table angrily. Nothing made sense to him any more. It hadn't since his return from the Narn homeworld. He had.... seen things there which had forced him to re-evaluate so much of his life. He had learned about the Enemy, about a network of agents being set up to combat this mysterious Enemy, led by a man he had every reason to respect and trust. And he had learned that he might be directly responsible for bringing this Enemy into an alliance with what remained of the human race. Everything John Sheridan held dear was collapsing around him, and this woman was at the centre. A Minbari. A Satai no less. She had been part of the destruction of his home planet. She had watched while he had been brought, chained and bloodied, before the Grey Council. She had fallen during his escape, and had been brought here, to Proxima 3. Sheridan had known what would be done to her. She was the first source of accurate, reliable information about the Minbari that the Resistance Government had had since the war began fourteen years ago. Humanity would do anything to gain that information. But still.... Sheridan had been shocked by the sight of her upon his return. Moaning, delirious, starving, weakened.... He had performed a single act of mercy - food, drink and sleep. And why? What was she to him? An enemy? A monster? A woman all alone in the night? "Who are you?" he whispered, speaking not to her, but to himself. A question to which he did not know the answer. "Captain," she said cautiously, and he looked up. "You are not alone in your pain. No one ever is." "You are." She paused. "No. I have my memories, and my purpose. I have my meditations. I am not alone." Sheridan begged to differ. The only one of her kind in a world where she had no friends at all. He had even heard that there had been riots while he was gone, as people struggled to have her brought forward for execution. Her only home now was a grey room, with walls, two chairs and a table. Her only company, the harshly ironic, coldly brutal Mr. Welles, able to tear her apart mentally and emotionally without laying a finger on her; or the silent guards who simply stared with eyes of hatred; or Sheridan himself.... "On Narn I met someone called Neroon," he said. "He.... seemed to know you." "Neroon," she said his name softly, as if he had always been foremost in her mind, but she had never been able to admit it until now. "I miss him, but.... he has his path and I have mine. Who would have thought mine would lead me here?" "Not him, certainly. Did you have many.... friends on Minbar?" "A few. Many were lost. The war. The Enemy. Branmer's was a sad death." "Ah yes. I've heard of him. He led in the Line, didn't he?" "And the Rangers after that. He was a great man." "I.... I was just wondering.... did you have any family at all? A brother or a sister?" "No," she said softly. "My mother entered the Daughters of Valeria just after I was born, and I have seen her only a few times since. My father.... he went to the sea many years ago. I miss him.